“Don’t afraid it”, the man cried imploringly, as he worked desperately to steady the craft, legs spread with one bare foot on each edge, sweat already dripping from his body – even though the journey to Lizard Island had not even begun. I have frequently wondered back to those words of his. Â Did he mean that I was not to fear his canoe? Or, rather, did he feel that my very presence there was threatening the natural balance that existed between him and his boat, that I was, as it were, guilty of ‘afraiding his canoe’? That my attitude, my energy – perhaps the weight of the European guilt I carried out there, there on the shores of Lake Malawi – was somehow upsetting the delicate relationship that existed between man and wood, wood and lake, lake and sky?
I only discovered later that the locals knew the island to be cursed.
To be continued.